Before I got hired in that particular store, I went for an interview in another store of that network of shops. Then their job as a sales assistant was already taken, but the manager of that store helped me by sending me to the store on Oktyabrskoye Polye. Then she said that her help was related to the fact that I, unlike many others, “looked with clever eyes”, and she thought to transfer me to her store in the future. Naturally, I did not just “look” then silently, but also spoke about something that she clearly considered to be an intellectual conversation. It may be worth saying thanks to meditation for that moment in my life.
Additionally, I needed to make a medical book in order to be able to work with food. I only remembered the part when I showed my veins of my arms at the physical examination, and the doctor was glad that I had no signs of needle injections. Based on her speech, it could be concluded that a considerable number of people use drugs…
Returning to my work as a loader, the boss once hinted to me about the opportunity to work as a seller, but she left before I could answer her anything.
Then I rested on the couch and our security guard sat down near me. We talked about something, and when he began to brag about how he had sex with a girl in a car, I felt uncomfortable and, possibly, envious because I never had normal sex by mutual sympathy, and not for money. This reminded me again that my life did not work out the way I wanted, and I was missing out on a lot of things in it. Before that, I had already had several similar moments, for example, when in high school one of my old school friends decided to tell me that in the summer he slept in the same bed with a girl, and then it turned out that my other friends were no longer virgins.
Then one day two young men who worked as electricians in that chain of shops entered the store. They were working with the electrical system until the end of the working day, and I walked with them to the bus stop, which was located a few meters from the shopping center. At that moment a slender girl walked past us. She worked as a merchandiser and placed cans of baby food on the shelves of our store. Then he openly turned his head to look at her butt – the act that I did not really like. It seemed to me not respectful. I think at that moment I forgot that I still almost every day watched porn videos on the Internet and did not consider this to be a disrespect towards girls. Of course, I watched porn mainly in order to get rid of constant thoughts about sex, which distracted me from my studies and life. I also understood that many of those “viewing sessions” took a lot of time, sometimes up to several hours spent searching for that another new unique video.
Speaking of free porn videos on the Internet that could be watched directly in the browser. They had just begun to appear on the web, and I had a clear thought at that time that if it wasn’t for these videos, I would most likely have stopped masturbating. Yes, I downloaded porn movies before, when the Internet speed was lower, but there is a difference between downloading a video and watching it directly.
Meanwhile, a new girl with blond hair began to work in the store. I often kept her company when she went outside to smoke. We talked about different things. Not sure if she told me that she had a boyfriend, or another guy working as a sales assistant pulled this information out of her. In order to remove all unnecessary things, I will go straight to the point and say that that seller came up behind that girl one day and made gestures as if he had sex with her. She did not see this, but for me from my point of view it again seemed immoral. Even though he knew that she had a boyfriend, he still made moves on her. I do not think that they really ever had sex, but then who knows…
Coming home after work, I still often watched movies, still in Russian translation, and not in the original. Once I started watching David Lynch's Mulholland Drive movie. When the final credits started to roll, I was completely sober from my fantasies and I was quite shocked by how close the main idea of this film reflected my life and I was shocked by what I realized then… I watched the film credits for the first time until the very end, still being shocked at the realization that all the previous months that I thought I had gotten rid of the habit of fantasizing, I was still in the grip of my out-of-control imagination. Droplet by droplet, fantasy by fantasy, and for many months I had been spending almost all my time in my imagination again and I did not see it! Then I realized that I needed to take it more seriously and this time actually “get out of myself”, and not think that I got out of myself while dreaming of this liberation.
Speaking of “getting out of myself”. I often recalled that dream, and I often wondered – is it prophetic? What if I would never actually manage to “get out of myself”? But then I reassured myself that in fact I already had a few moments when I was fully focused on reality, and this meant that the word “never”, uttered in that dream, had nothing to do with real facts, and , accordingly, that dream could not be prophetic. All I had to work on back then was to make the living in reality a habit and remember everything that I recently learned and realized…
On the next working day, they brought something huge. When I was carrying that heavy box upstairs to the second floor, my heart ached for a moment. This was the reason for quitting the job on the twenty-ninth of August. I worked as a loader for three weeks, and I was glad of such an experience which, among other things, also required me to carry empty boxes in the garbage. I was glad of it because I found out then what happens if you do what you do not want to do in your life.
Once at that time I also regretted having spent several years of my life reading articles about UFOs and other similar things. But then I remembered that distant event with the bright entity in the village that was the reason for my searches, and I calmed down a bit, realizing that perhaps something like this really existed in this world, but we just did not know about it. But despite this, I no longer had the desire to get involved with the subject of the unknown because I wanted to regain my life here on Earth.
In the fall of that year, I wanted to try to go to acting classes. I thought it could help me with my remaining lack of self-confidence. I was still afraid to speak with other people, which became clear during the first introductory lesson of those courses. There were a lot of people, and the teacher asked each one in the audience to come in front of the crowd and talk a little about themselves. Then a slight panic again began to seize me. I tried to relax, remembering what I knew about stuttering. I do not remember what I said when it was finally my turn to speak. I can only say that my speech was without stupors, which did not prevent some people from laughter. Most likely they were amused by my body movements and facial expressions – a logical manifestation of my insecurity and nervousness.
I must say that that evening, when I was just about to enter the building where the introductory acting classes were held, I could not help but hear the conversation of two women, one of whom loudly said something like this: “And then he suddenly started talking about sex and I felt so scared!”. This was another moment of my life, in which, at that time, I found another confirmation that I had to first go abroad, and only then look for a normal girlfriend.
Another reason that I postponed the search for the girlfriend until later was that due to the influence of television I had the impression that Russian girls would not want to communicate with me as soon as they learned that I dreamed of living in a country about which there had been spoken quite a lot of negativity at that time already.
That fall, I also went to English courses which were held twice a week in the evenings at one of the local schools.
I had no money to attend two training courses at the same time, and so I chose English, as knowledge of the language would open up more opportunities for me in the future.
I bought the required textbook and workbook. It was an intermediate English course for those who already knew little language.
How I liked being at the school desk again then, not having all the problems that prevented me from opening up in school. I gladly read in English and translated the text aloud, I myself volunteered to answer – in fact, I was one of the most active in our small class – and I really liked the learning process. Then I realized what I had lost due to stuttering in school. And I really was right when I was still in high school and I thought that it was because of the consequences of stuttering that I was getting good grades instead of excellent ones… well, or mostly excellent.
Sometimes